


in another life, maybe

by mollivanders



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post-Season/Series 02, Season 3 AU, a 'what could be' if the writers let them kiss au :D
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 14:53:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15121829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: “I really like you a lot,” she adds, and now her skin is getting itchy. Is she allergic to liking people? That can’t be right. Anyway. Tahani doesn’t seem to have gotten it; seems about to say something awful and benign likeI like you tooback but not in the same way, and so Eleanor shakes her head.“I really, actually,” she says, “want to kiss you.”





	in another life, maybe

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write this since 2x11 'The Burrito' aired and now it's done! An AU that sort of follows what the show actually did in 2x12 but with Eleanor/Tahani.

She tries. She actually tries for like, a solid six months. She tries to help the environment, and takes responsibility for shit she does that goes bad, and is honest to a fault. An actual fault. But it turns out that being good – actually good, really good, not just for the weekend – is actually pretty fuckin’ hard. If there’s no reward at the end, and nobody is nice to her when she does good stuff, what’s the point? If she’d been nice instead of ruthless as a kid she never would have survived Donna and Doug.

So she stops trying to be good, and instead tries to ignore the weird guilt that comes with _not_ trying now, like she’s disappointed some guardian angel who really should know better than to place bets on her. Her, Eleanor Shellstrop. It’s not like she’s a pro bono child saving lawyer or some shit.

The feeling doesn’t go away, though. The feeling actually seems to be looking over her shoulder, haunting her, so when Brittany suggests they take off to London for Eleanor’s birthday, she doesn’t even pause before suggesting they use one of Madison’s old credit cards to book the flights – and if the guardian angel at her back lets out a despairing groan well – that’s his problem.

Still, as she boards the flight, it weirdly feels like she’s going home.

(Stupid, she thinks. She’s never had a home.)

+

She ditches Brittany the third day in London to crash a charity event held by some swanky philanthropist. Eleanor almost thinks the woman looks familiar – maybe she’s seen her on some tabloid cover. She looks the type. Eleanor _does_ recognize the sister, which is why she doesn’t feel guilty about party crashing, not even a little. Nobody, she thinks, is actually that perfect.

It’s almost too easy to steal a wait staff uniform and change in the bushes. It’s almost like someone left a window open for her, until the moment she barely avoids flashing the sister, deep in conversation with a journalist. In her hurry to avoid them, she falls backwards through a hedge, swearing. Loudly. Some people – assholes –

Her fall lands her in the rose garden, right in front of Tahani Al-Jamil, first born and second best daughter, spending anguished tears in frustrated silence. It’s the _anger_ in the frustration that really halts in her tracks; this woman seems to have everything. Hell, she has so much she’s giving it away in billions and yet – something about her rings familiar. Or maybe she just looks so pitifully solitary on that bench that Eleanor can relate.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Eleanor says, still covered in plant material when Tahani freezes and looks up at her. Eleanor doesn’t know how anyone could have missed an entrance like hers, but well, she’s been there. She’s usually less sober than this woman looks when it happens, but she’s been there. Tahani is hastily wiping the tears off her cheeks as she takes Eleanor in and so she keeps talking; it’s what she does.

“Is this not the beer garden?” she says, looking around as if confused. “Simon said to cut through here but then I turn a wrong turn and it’s a maze in there.” Surely there’s a Simon at an English charity event.

At this, Tahani finally finds her voice, blinking as she stares at Eleanor.

“Oh, that’s alright,” Tahani says, as if Eleanor hadn’t just caught her in a truly vulnerable moment. Her voice barely shakes. Maybe she did this often? “Are you here for the event? Welcome.”

Eleanor cocks her head, looking at the other woman in some mix of confused amusement.

“ _Welcome_?! Are you kidding me?!” she says. “I just fell through a hedge. You were just crying a river. What’s the deal, hot stuff?”

Tahani’s smile is watery but years of clear social etiquette hold her back and Eleanor arches an impressed eyebrow as Tahani straightens her back, tossing her hair indifferently.

“Allergies,” Tahani says, and despite all the evidence to the contrary Eleanor wants to believe her.

“Well, whoever gave you allergies,” Eleanor says, “fuck ‘em.”

Tahani smiles again, brighter this time, and Eleanor shakes herself back into focus. There’s something about her that just seems so familiar, but that’s obviously insane. Still –

“It’s my sister, Kamilah,” Tahani says, and Eleanor promptly sits next to her. “This even was supposed to help my good friend Bono’s charity and she’s taken it over for her own cause, again. And everyone loves her for it, again.” She pauses. “Including Bono.”

On the one hand, there are people starving in the world who couldn’t care less who gives them the money and who this woman’s friends are, or aren’t, as the case may be. On the other, Eleanor gets it. She really does.

“Fuck them both then,” she says, and bumps her shoulder against Tahani’s. This time, she laughs, and somehow even her laugh is disarmingly pretty.

“Let’s get out of here,” Eleanor says, a reckless streak springing to life. She’s done crazier and worse things than kidnapping a socialite from a party. Fuck, she’s even done that before. “Let’s go someplace _actually_ fun and have idiots buy us drinks all night.” Every nerve in her body feels like it’s been lit up, sending a bat signal out to this other woman, and she wants to ride that feeling as long as she can.

Maybe Tahani feels the same way because she doesn’t take but a moment to nod, suggesting bars way too nice to actually consider. They walk out of the party arm-in-arm, past Tahani’s sister and the journalists and Bono. It pisses Eleanor off that they don’t even seem to notice that Tahani’s gone, and as revenge they go to the dive-iest bar she’s found. The bartender is new but he also looks weirdly familiar, and Eleanor’s glad he leaves them alone. Mostly. He shoots a pleased look their way once or twice and she shoots him a dirty look back.

 _Creep_ , Eleanor decides, and forgets about him.

(She has her hands full paying attention to Tahani anyway.)

+

Eleanor has always been direct; in truth it’s often one of her worst qualities. Here, it works in her favor.

“I like you,” she tells Tahani one afternoon. The sunlight is filtering through the large Grecian windows in Tahani’s country house in Sussex. Well, _one_ of her country houses, but Eleanor’s trying not to think about that right now. They’re curled up in the window seat against the pillows, and she’s just convinced Tahani to eat peaches without dinnerware, apparently for the first time in her life. The fruit is ripe and sweet and sticky and Tahani is laughing as she tries to avoid a mess and fails. It’s the most fun Eleanor’s had just today, because every day is starting to feel inevitably good around Tahani. It actually feels like every day is summer, and always will be.

(That’s definitely why she hasn’t thought about going home in weeks.)

“This is a terrible idea, Eleanor,” she says around the fruit, and the way she says her name sends a thrill through her bones. That’s when she decides, and when Eleanor decides, she just _does_.

“I really like you a lot,” she adds, and now her skin is getting itchy. Is she allergic to liking people? That can’t be right. Anyway. Tahani doesn’t seem to have gotten it; seems about to say something awful and benign like _I like you too_ back but not in the same way, and so Eleanor shakes her head.

“I really, actually,” she says, “want to kiss you.”

Tahani doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. She smiles, like she’s known, or she’s wished, and wished for somehow exactly this. She nudges closer to Eleanor to brush her thumb across her lips and well, she may as well die right now.

“That’s very forward of you, Eleanor,” she says not-at-all primly, and suddenly she’s very very _very_ close and Eleanor doesn’t know how to breathe, but she knows how to do this. She leans up, just a little, and finds Tahani’s lips.

(It’s like coming home.)

She’s sweet, even sweeter with the taste of fruit, and Tahani swallows the sound that Eleanor makes as she shifts closer, dragging her fingers through Tahani’s hair. Tahani’s almost laughing into Eleanor’s mouth as she pushes her back against the pillows, and Eleanor really does think she’s probably died at this point.

She finally breaks the kiss, swallowing hard, and puts a hand on Tahani’s leg to steady herself. It doesn’t really work; her stomach is still doing cartwheels and she’s dreaming, she must be dreaming.

“We should have done that earlier,” she says, catching Tahani’s eyes again. Tahani looks flustered but more than anything she looks smug.

“I wanted to do that since you walked me out of the rose garden,” Tahani says and Eleanor shakes her head, pulling her down on top of her as Tahani’s dress slides up her legs.

“How about,” Eleanor says, nipping at Tahani’s lips again, “I show you what I’ve been thinking about since then?”

The look on Tahani’s face is one that Eleanor has never seen before, and suddenly never wants from anyone else ever again.

(Maybe, she thinks, she can be good after all.)

+

She’d never thought she was the marrying type. She still doesn’t think she is, but as she’s learned over and over, it’s _Tahani_ that matters. It matters that they wake up early and take their time coming downstairs; it matters that Tahani seems to care less and less what Kamilah is doing or what her parents think; it matters that they seem to have made a home in the middle of homelessness.

It matters that out of all the people in the world, they found each other.

So when Tahani suggests, a little wildly, that they run away and elope, Eleanor is all on board. What’s there for her in Phoenix? What is there for her anywhere but here? They find a little chapel in the French countryside and Eleanor is not even a little embarrassed when her hands shake as she slides the ring onto Tahani’s hand.

(Hers looks just as right, just as if it had always been there.)

“We could go anywhere,” Eleanor says, propping her head up on the pillow to look at Tahani. Her wife – her _wife_ – is looking up at her with a mix of hunger and joy that Eleanor really is going to have to answer in just a moment. “Do anything. We don’t have to go back to England. I don’t care about Arizona.”

“I can work anywhere,” Tahani says, stealing another kiss, and there’s a truth to that statement that warms Eleanor inside and out. It _is_ work now; not a competition in her family. Tahani genuinely cares, but she’d been filled with so much loss it didn’t balance out. Not now; not here. It’s getting hard to think as Tahani trails a branch of kisses down her throat, but something in Eleanor is calling out that this is important too.

“Maybe,” she breathes, “we help the environment,” and Tahani smiles, full of promise and life and their future ahead.

“I can’t wait to hear about it,” she says. “Later.” Her kisses trail lower, the sheets thrown askew, and as Eleanor arches back, mumbling nonsensically, a weight that’s been held over what feels like both their heads lifts high and flutters away. Drowning in heaven and the touch of her beloved, a stray emotion gives purpose to her heart all over again.

(She’s come home at last.)

_Finis_

**Author's Note:**

> [Including a bonus aesthetic post](http://ladytharen.tumblr.com/post/175427536019/in-another-life-maybe-the-good-place)! :D


End file.
